OR (Transact-SQL)

Combines two conditions. When more than one logical operator is used in a statement, OR operators are evaluated after AND operators. However, you can change the order of evaluation by using parentheses.

Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

boolean_expression OR boolean_expression

Arguments

• boolean_expression
  Is any valid expression that returns TRUE, FALSE, or UNKNOWN.

Remarks

The following table shows the result of the OR operator.

	TRUE	FALSE	UNKNOWN
TRUE	TRUE	TRUE	TRUE
FALSE	TRUE	FALSE	UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN	TRUE	UNKNOWN	UNKNOWN

Result Types

Boolean

Result Value

OR returns TRUE when either of the conditions is TRUE.

Examples

The following example uses the vEmployeeDepartmentHistory view to retrieve the names of Quality Assurance personnel who work either the evening shift or the night shift. If the parentheses are omitted, the query returns Quality Assurance employees who work the evening shift and all employees who work the night shift.

USE AdventureWorks
GO
SELECT FirstName, LastName, Shift 
FROM HumanResources.vEmployeeDepartmentHistory
WHERE Department = 'Quality Assurance'
   AND (Shift = 'Evening' OR Shift = 'Night')

Here is the result set.

FirstName    LastName         Shift
------------ ---------------- -------
Andreas      Berglund         Evening
Sootha       Charncherngkha   Night

See Also

Reference

Expressions (Transact-SQL)
Functions (Transact-SQL)
Operators (Transact-SQL)
SELECT (Transact-SQL)
WHERE (Transact-SQL)

Other Resources

Logical Operators

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance

Change History

Release	History
14 April 2006	Changed content: Replaced the example.